-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- From `` Mississippi Masala '' to `` Vanity Fair , '' Mira Nair 's movies have entranced audiences in India and the West . CNN spoke to the director of `` Monsoon Wedding '' and `` Salaam Bombay ! '' at the Bollywood Movie Awards in Long Island about filmmaking in India and America and her adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri 's novel about loss and family , `` The Namesake . ''

... .

Film director Mira Nair

CNN : What inspired you to make `` The Namesake '' ?

Mira Nair : I happened to read `` The Namesake '' on a plane in early 2004 , when I traveled from New York to Jo ` berg to finish the filming of `` Vanity Fair . '' I read `` Namesake '' while in huge grief with the death of a beloved person to me -LSB- Mira 's mother in law -RSB- . It was at that state of mourning that I picked up this novel , and in it Jhumpa writes really acutely of a loss of a parent in a foreign country , and I thought I had been understood by someone .

It was also a story that linked the two cities in which I had grown up -- Calcutta and New York City -- and it was almost certainly the road that I had traveled . It just spoke to me and I felt compelled to do this film . A few months later we were shooting it .

CNN : It 's filmed in both India and New York , such different cultures . Tell us about the universal themes involved during the film .

Nair : Well , the story of movement and crossings is as old as the hills . It 's a tale of millions of us that have left one home for another , and tried to find out who we are through these places . Then when we have children , life gets more interesting . It is about growing up through our adult lives and our children 's lives .

It is also equally a love story between two people who come from a culture who do n't send roses and diamonds for love ; who sit at a kitchen table and look at each other . It 's about that generation of parents who have that stillness about one another , versus the clang and hustle of young Gogol who is 15 and grows up in an American world because he wishes to be American . That flow -- that see-saw between parents and children , that 's what `` The Namesake '' is about .

CNN : Tell us about casting the role of Gogol .

Nair : Well , Kal Penn plays Gogol and he 's known as a comic star , but I had no idea that he existed until my 15-year-old son said , `` This has to be your Gogol . '' I did n't take him seriously at all until every night the campaign mounted at home : `` Tell me in the morning it 's Kal Penn ! '' he would say . And then Kal wrote to me and told me he became an actor because he had seen `` Mississippi Masala '' when he was eight years old and realized people on the screen could look like him , and other such seductive things . He came to my office and auditioned and he was just so appealing , and so much the real thing , that I cast him as Gogol .

CNN : How have Indian audiences reacted to your heavily western-influenced films ?

Nair : It 's not that different a kind of audience , that 's what pleases me . `` Salaam Bombay ! '' we really made for the children on the streets and the kids who really love that Bollywood stuff , and also with `` Deeply Alternative , '' which ran for 27 weeks . `` Monsoon Wedding '' was also a big hit in India . But no , they do n't come to my films for Bollywood fare ; it 's a completely alternative thing . In terms of audiences on both sides , I 've been blessed : the films have been really well received and highly anticipated .

CNN : `` The Namesake '' was filmed in America and India . What differences were there in the two locations ?

Nair : In India it is more about orchestrating chaos , and it 's about sifting the chaos , but I get especially excited about the throb and chaos on the streets and so on , and in America it 's about paying for the chaos , you know every head has to be placed there and paid for .

CNN : `` The Namesake '' is about not losing the identity of Indian culture . Was that a challenge ?

Nair : I am at home in many cultures . I live actively in three continents and I 've done that for most of my life , so I just make films as I see the world , and that happens to speak to people . I do things that I want to do . It so happens because I am fluent in both worlds that my films enter both worlds , perhaps .

CNN : Do Indian and American audiences behave differently ?

Nair : No , not really . I think films have to reach people and really grab them . That 's what I hope to do when I make a film -- to get under your skin and really make you think about something , and have a transporting time that takes you somewhere . E-mail to a friend

@highlight

Nair directed `` Monsoon Wedding , '' `` Vanity Fair , '' `` Salaam Bombay ! ''

@highlight

Her film , `` The Namesake , '' is based on Jhumpa Lahiri 's novel

@highlight

Nair cast character of `` Gogol '' after teenage son 's recommendation

@highlight

Nair : Indian and American audiences `` not that different ''